Teen Shaming the Latest Rage on Social Media

“Slut-shaming,” a disturbing trend in which teens harshly criticize each other’s body types and style, continues to sweep the Internet. Young girls, and increasingly boys, have taken to creating memes on Tumblr and Facebook to offer mock – and often insulting – advice to their peers. The memes, most containing the phrase “Hey Girls, Did You Know?” took off in June 2012, when Tumblr user officialsabrina_xo uploaded a picture poking fun at the slew of cleavage photos on the Internet. The photo was quickly taken down, but Tumblr users had already begun reblogging it.

The image inspired a series of copycats, which are compiled on the Facebook page “Hey Girl, Did You Know?” which has nearly 40,000 likes. The new trend has reignited concerns over adolescent cyber bullying and has raised questions about the legality of such public shaming. “Everyone thinks they can do anything they feel like doing online. They can’t,” says Internet privacy security lawyer Parry Aftab. “Free speech has its limits. If you defame somebody and you harass somebody, if you target them – that may be against the law.”